At three years of age I began my education officially. Privately, of course, with expensive tutors shipped in from everywhere in order to ensure that I had the best learning experience possible. As the daughter of a mafia don, I couldn't possibly socialize with children in actual, gasp, schools.

Naturally, the education I was to receive at this point was meant to be extremely basic. However, the patronizing nature of my tutors irritated me to the point of displaying more intelligence-not enough to be considered clever as an adult but enough so I didn't spend all my time counting how many apples Tommy had.

These lessons did allow for me to have time away from my clingy half-brother, which was a plus since his presence was somewhat aggravating. Only my goal of controlling this entire world kept me from letting my dislike of him show through entirely.

World domination. Honestly, I sounded like such the typical villain. Although I understood the sentiment of these antagonists more than ever now.

Perhaps, considering this world was meant to be fictional, I counted as the usual antagonist after all?


I was aged four when he arrived.

Lessons for the day over, I was curled up in an armchair in my bedroom, finding solace in a very absorbing murder mystery novel (I rather wanted the murderer to be the teacher as she seemed far too innocent to not be lying and it would be most impressive if she was). Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw it. It was hovering just by the side of my book, edging closer and making the tiniest sound that hadn't been detectable in my concentrated state.

Very calmly, I fidgeted so that it was right over my opened book and then snapped it shut with a resounding thump.

I discarded the book onto the floor without looking, strolling casually towards my door and into the corridor. Shame it'll have to be incinerated now, I rather liked it. Perhaps I'll buy a copy, I thought absentmindedly, descending a staircase and towards one of the many lounges. Stopping before turning the final corner, I mentally tutted at the sound of my father's voice, tinged with emotion and distress. You should lower your voice father dearest, secrets can get out if you don't.

"She refuses to allow me to help her so I beg that you do it instead so she won't notice- you understand, don't you? If she dies I don't know what I'll do…!"

Twirling a lock of hair around one finger, I examined my nails briefly. There were no signs of the dirt I'd acquired when training earlier-my body was so malleable, so weak in my youth so I'd started light exercises in order to remedy this as quickly as possible.

"Don't worry, I promised I'd help you and I will."

My bored actions halted at the sound of the familiar voice, eyes narrowing. It was familiar in more than just the sense of having heard it from a certain person's lips before. The unreadable nature of it. The controlled, slow measure of it. The concealed weight it had on the person they were speaking to.

I know your kind well.

My ears caught the telltale buzz of another one of them from around the corner and I plastered a childish grin on my face, walking along as if I had never stopped. I applied more pressure to my feet as they pressed against the floor, purposefully making my footsteps progressively louder. It would not do to scare my father's guest by appearing without him being able to sense me-although I was not opposed to showing off a bit of my skill by only revealing myself at this distance. Perhaps if he was smart then he might even notice how him sensing me was not inexperience on my part.

The door was ajar by quite a substantial amount but I pushed it open a little more anyway, my father quickly covering up his distressed expression with a smile. "Bianchi, sweetheart, what are you doing here?"

I took a step into the room before answering, finally seeing my father's visitor.

There is a thing that happens when two people of a certain kind meet. A specific exchange of looks, a distinct quirk of the lips, a definite evaluation of who is stronger and whether you will challenge this or allow one another to continue their business without interference.

The meeting of assassins.

My father's visitor was young, most definitely in his twenties. His body was for the most part concealed by a suit, slightly dishevelled in places, but the lines of his muscles pressing against the fabric were visible. White, pale scars dotted the visible skin but they were small in number and fairly faded. Lips quirked up slightly, as if to give off the image of a calm individual, and...the eyes of a killer.

I felt my smile grow a little. "Papa, who is this?"

"Ah, this is Doctor Shamal. He will be working here from now on." My father introduced the man who bowed to me extravagantly.

"I am honoured to meet you, princess." Shamal lifted his head again, smiling still but eyes still deadly. I pretended not to notice, clasping my hands behind my back and closing my eyes slightly.

"It's nice to meet you too, doctor." I tilted my head to look at my father again. "Ah, by the way, papa, can we go shopping for new books? My favourite one got ruined whilst I was playing."

I couldn't resist putting in the subtle warning to Shamal. I suspected he already knew that one of his mosquitoes had been killed by yours truly but it would not hurt to have him a little more aware of my intelligence. Family was one thing but assassins needed to know not to mess with you or they'd use you in their schemes.

Well, at least I would. And, Shamal supposedly being a genius and all, I expected the same of him despite him being younger.

Trident Shamal.

He had the most useful killing technique. When used correctly, he could make his target's death seem completely natural with a suitable disease. And he could be miles away whilst his little creatures did the deed for him, making any suspicion cast upon himself minimal.

Almost the perfect assassination skill.

Perhaps I can steal it? I mused absentmindedly, continuing to smile at the killer in the form of a young man.


The last time I saw Lavina was the last time Gokudera did too. Pale and even thinner than before, she left with what I supposed would be a heartbreaking smile if I really cared about her. Before she disappeared, she knelt down and held my hand in her's, asking me to take good care of my darling younger brother.

I resisted the temptation to mention how I'd been one move away from killing the boy in his cot just to see what her reaction would be.

She left with her silver hair flying behind her and Gokudera's piano playing filling the air as he practised what she'd last taught him.


On his third birthday, Gokudera waited excitedly on the piano stool, waiting for his beautiful piano teacher to arrive. At four in the afternoon, my father's scream of misery echoed through the corridors.

My mother and I ignored him.


"Bianchi."

I didn't turn at my mother's voice, allowing her to continue to braid my hair with careful perfection. "Yes, mama?"

One of her unblemished hands rested on my shoulder, clean, pretty nails adorning her fingers. A sigh escaped her mouth, not out of exhaustion but simple exasperation at a feature of the world surrounding her. "Do not overestimate the power of men. They may have positions of great influence but in reality they have hearts like the rest of us." Her voice held no great emotion as if she had just commented on the weather rather than made a statement of the weakness of men.

I resisted the urge to remark upon her considerable lack of heart towards the man she had married with an amused tone, instead passing my eyes over a man's jacket I knew did not belong to my father and the crumpled note with handwriting that could be seen on bottles of medicine and medical reports all around the mansion.

Oh, Lavina truly had been the fool. A mere poor pianist did not hold even a lick of light to the raging fire that was the wife of a mafia boss and the owner of various brothels.


My eyes drifted over the form of a young woman hurrying past me, the tell tale signs of bruises on her neck and mussed hair making me want to laugh. It was easy to track where she'd come from and I traced her steps back to a room with the door slightly ajar. Through the gap I could see that the bedsheets were a mess and a shirt hanging over the back of a chair, which was promptly snatched up a few moments before the door was opened fully.

"Did you have a good morning, doctor?" I resisted the urge to titter as Shamal buttoned up his shirt hastily, grabbing his jacket from the doorknob and shutting the door behind him.

"You're up earlier than usual, piccola." He ran a hand through his unkempt hair, plastering a smile on his face. His eyes then caught sight of a clock and he visibly bit back a wince. "Or, it seems, I am up later than usual."

I bit my tongue, deciding it would not be in my favour to make a comment about him having been up much earlier for certain. "Don't worry, my other teachers rearranged their schedules to account for this." I didn't miss the slight look of alarm on his face at the other tutors knowing exactly what he had been up to with that woman who had rushed off.

"Oh, well, lucky that." Shrugging his jacket on, he started towards his other private room, making sure his pace was slow enough so that I could keep up. A mosquito hovered by his shoulder and my eyes narrowed by the slightest amount, quashing the urge to kill the insect before it could cause me any harm. The instinct was uncontrollable; my reflexes were honed to react to danger and I could not train it out of me even if I wanted at this point.

Unlocking the door the room, Shamal opened it for me to walk in first, flicking the switch for the lights so the space was illuminated. It was luxurious like most of the other rooms but far more practical as well with shelves filled and drawers kept to the side so it would be more spacious. There was a metal table too, currently kept in a cupboard out of sight, for bodies of both the alive and dead to be laid on.

This was Shamal's personal quarters for him to make use of his title of doctor. I had come to use it as the space for my unofficial medical, biology and poison lessons.

I'd requested this soon after Shamal had joined my father's family in the name of 'curiosity', which was one of my few times of honesty.

(Well, honesty to an extent as I'd also done it to keep an eye on the assassin so I'd know if he'd planned to do anything drastic as to escape unscathed.)

"So, what would signorita like to learn today?" The man questioned, rifling through some bottles on a shelf. A few questions sprang to mind, most unaskable as Shamal would most likely be greatly disturbed and think that I was plotting to murder someone in their sleep. A reasonable assumption too-I'd perfectly planned out how I would assassinate him if it came to it.

Several times in fact.

"I watched this film last night." I began, hopping onto a chair and swinging my legs back and forth purposefully. "They forced someone to tell the truth by drinking something. Is that possible?" I made my eyes large and deathly curious.

He turned on his heel and I counted one large hickey on his adam's apple. Oh, too obvious, you won't pull another woman if you don't cover that up. "In vino veritas."

"In wine there is truth." I translated the latin phrase, smiling when Shamal cocked an eyebrow. "My father's family members say that a lot as an excuse for drinking."

Shamal barked out a laugh before running his thumb down his stubble. "Ah, piccola, what a world we live in where that is a suitable excuse for a glass of wine…" He shook his head, clearly amused by what I'd told him. I'd had the same reaction when the latin phrase had been thrown at me accompanied by a drunken grin. It was laughable that those members of my father's family felt comfortable enough to get themselves get absolutely wasted without a substantial excuse for it. I'd had to resist the urge to poison one of them several times in order to make a display of how stupid it was for them to lower the guard so much.

Alas, I must allow the stupidity to continue, I thought with a dramatic mental sigh, turning my attention back to the doctor once more.

"There isn't any officially recognized truth serum, however, there is one that is commonly used to act in that manner." Shamal paused dramatically, leaning over as so to grin at me. "Sodium thiopental. It slows down your thinking process so one is more prone to speak more loosely about matters. Of course, there are other methods to extract information that are much more effective…" He trailed off, making me dully note that he was referring to the practice of torture.

That, I agreed, was a far better method than the use of sodium thiopental.

I was somewhat disappointed with the doctor's confession however to the aforementioned liquid being the only mostly trusted truth serum. I would have thought that the mafia would have made advancements in that area considering I knew of it before entering this world. Then again, torture was a tried and tested practice so there was no point to changing what worked.

Or, another likely conclusion was that Shamal was opting not to tell me about any advancements in the area. Assassins didn't share their trade secrets with anyone after all; you wanted to stay ahead of the ignorant masses for as long as possible.

"Not as eloquent an answer as you'd like, signorita?" At my lack of speech, the man assumed correctly that I was dissatisfied to what he had said, although for the wrong reasons. "Well, at least you know that going round drugging people with a truth serum isn't worth it."

I faked a laugh.


When 'the piano woman' (as he so called her) didn't show up at his fourth birthday, Gokudera didn't even bat an eyelid, easily coaxed from the music room by a simple promise of cake. My mother even seemed somewhat pleased by his reaction, a stark difference from our father who turned pale before excusing himself.

The servants whispered about the mysterious silver haired beauty and her true relation to my half-brother, however simple glances from the woman of the household caused them to hold their tongue with twisted, anxious expressions.

Shamal slept away the day in the company of yet another beautiful lady and I felt the distinct urge to laugh at his stupidity. He may have been a renowned hitman, sure, but he was still young and easily coaxed into doing the bidding of another through whispered, sultry begs for a simple favour.

There was a reason that many of the characters in this world were so objectively attractive. Those with beauty had another weapon that those without could not grasp so easily. And my mother had sharpened her blade to perfection.


Sorry I took so long to update! Don't worry, I haven't lost interest in this fic at all, it just takes a while to get each chapter done even when they're quite small…

Hopefully things can move more quickly now!